1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method and apparatus for control.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Power generation companies need to balance the electrical power grid. This means that the power generation companies need to ensure that the amount of electricity provided to a local area is sufficient to meet the demand of the users in that area at any given time. Failure to perform this balancing correctly can result in so-called “brown outs” where the supply voltage temporarily drops to a very low level due to failure of the power companies to meet current demand or so-called “black outs” where the supply is lost.
As demand varies considerably during the day, it is difficult to ensure that all the users' demands are met without providing over capacity on the network.
In order to achieve this, power generation companies tend to have electrical generation capacity on standby which can generate power very quickly. For example, hydroelectric power generation can be brought on-line within a minute which can satisfy a sharp increase in power consumption. However, the hydroelectric generators typically are located in remote areas of a country whereas high power demand is located in urban areas with large population concentrations. This means that it is sometimes difficult to transfer the electricity from the area of rapid production to the area of consumption.
There is a need to provide electrical energy in highly populated areas very quickly to deal with demand. It is an aim of the present invention to address this problem.